The F138's chassis was designed by Pat Fry, Nikolas Tombazis, and Loic Bigois, with Luca Marmorini leading engine and electronics development. Ferrari were simultaneously developing their 2014 car in parallel, dividing engineering resources across two distinct projects. Winter testing suggested the F138 would be meaningfully more competitive than its predecessor, the F2012, a prediction that proved accurate in the opening rounds of the season.
The car was immediately quicker than the F2012 on debut in Australia, where Alonso finished second and Massa fourth after the F138 showed better race pace than its rivals. Malaysia saw Massa qualify second — his fourth consecutive race qualifying ahead of his teammate — but Alonso suffered front wing damage from contact with Vettel, which the team left in place until it failed structurally on lap two and put him out of the race. Massa finished fifth.
China brought the F138's first win of the season after Ferrari introduced upgrades that improved single-lap pace. Alonso moved to the lead following mid-race strategy and held it to the flag. He later admitted to having withheld the car's full pace during the race. Spain produced the second win: Alonso passed Raikkonen and Hamilton at the third corner on the opening lap and dominated on a four-stop strategy, with Massa completing a Ferrari 1-3 in third.
The F138 struggled on high-downforce circuits. In Monaco the car lacked the pace of the Mercedes and Red Bull machines, and debris stuck beneath Alonso's front wing further hampered aerodynamic performance; he finished seventh. Massa, whose car had been damaged in FP3 practice, started twenty-third and later retired after contact with the same barrier, confirmed by Ferrari to have caused a damaged suspension.
Canada saw Alonso recover from sixth on the grid to second. Massa started sixteenth after crashing his brand-new chassis in qualifying — the team describing it as driver error — and finished eighth. Britain was difficult for both cars; Alonso qualified tenth and Massa twelfth, though both were promoted one place after a penalty for di Resta. A race heavily affected by left-rear tyre failures, including Massa's, ended with Alonso third after pitting for fresh tyres in the final ten laps and capitalising on Hamilton's tyre failure and Vettel's gearbox retirement.
From mid-season the car oscillated in competitiveness. Germany brought fourth for Alonso while Massa retired with a gearbox problem. Hungary saw the F138 lose its race pace unexpectedly, with team principal Stefano Domenicali publicly acknowledging the team did not understand the cause. Belgium showed the car at its best: Ferrari brought a package of upgrades that made it the closest challenger to Red Bull in practice, and Alonso drove from a poor grid position to finish second. Italy saw a low-downforce package work effectively, yielding second and fourth places. Singapore produced another second place for Alonso, who gained from a safety car period despite qualifying seventh.
The Ferrari F138 has been featured in the racing simulations F1 2013 and Assetto Corsa, the latter including the car in its Red Pack downloadable content.
The F138 represents the final Ferrari Formula One car to use a naturally aspirated V8 engine, closing an era that had lasted for decades. The naming convention of using the year as the car's title — introduced with this chassis — also acknowledged the end of the V8 formula. Fernando Alonso's consistent points-scoring kept Ferrari as an irregular but genuine threat to Red Bull and Mercedes across the season, demonstrating that driver quality could partially compensate for a car that lacked outright pace against the dominant packages. The F138 was Ferrari's last car to be driven by Felipe Massa as a Scuderia driver.
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